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Monthly Archives: April 2013

Sometimes I doubt the past. I doubt my memories of it.
‘Did that really happen or is it just my imagination?’
I look at the moments, the great ones, (you know their great as their happening ) and I whisper to my heart to hold onto it.
I tell myself to remember the smell of food mixed with freshly cut grass from that picnic, and the exact words that are said and exactly how they’re said. I close my eyes and just feel everything. I memorise it all cause in a second, its gone. Nothing but a memory, and all I can hope is that I captured that picture perfectly.

You think you have it; time, like water held securely in your hand. Then the drops start falling through your fingers. But you can’t catch them, lest you lose it all. So you have to let them fall. You have to let them fall away, but you still have to hold on.

People are easily those drops of water. For a time, they are there and they are yours. Pillars in your life. They make you laugh, they make you cry. You think they’ll be there forever. How could they not be?
But somehow, the texts become fewer, the calls less frequent. Maybe they move away and everyone just gets lost in their own little worlds. Months later, you’ll wonder where they went. You’ll ask yourself how you drifted apart and you’ll make a point to call them up. Maybe you’ll remember(probably not) but it wont be the same.
Time changes us, and no matter how much we try, we can’t be who we were back then.

You can’t do much about the past, and God only knows about the future, but now? That you can handle.
Its easy to take folks for granted: friends, family, significant others.. But don’t. Who knows what could happen next? Treasure them. Ask them how their day was. Tell them a joke. Love them. It’ll cost you nothing but happiness.

They tell you of racing hearts and hands that find their way to each other as you walk down a stretch. They write poems and ballads about shared laughs and warm embraces. They create movies, showcasing the strength of love …but they never give the whole story.

They never tell you how weak it makes you to love. How vulnerable to know that a person could crush your heart whenever
they so please.

They never tell you of how crazy it could make you, to think of someone so much, until their image in your mind is distorted.

They never speak of that little part of yourself that you hate, that eagerly jumps to do that person’s every whim.

They never say that sometimes you can become such a part of someone that you lose yourself and disappear into the idea of ‘you’ that they think you should be.

They never tell you that love opens you up to an assault that that could leave your heart crippled for years.

They never talk of the possibility of having to forget someone you know so well because that’s the only way the pain will stop.

If they did speak of it, if they did tell us the whole story, would it change anything? Or would we still run into burning buildings? Its only a matter of time before the roof caves in..

Steel Magnolias. Thirty minutes into the film and I was still trying to figure out what exactly the main story was. You see, ‘black movies’ kinda have a template flow and I guess I was looking for that … till, of course, I got so wrapped up in the story I forgot to watch it with a raised eyebrow and the antagonistic ‘mhmm’.

I can’t remember the last movie I watched that made me cry and a split second later made me laugh. Yes, go out and get it right now if you haven’t yet watched it.

So what exactly is the movie about? Its about love and friendship. Its about living to the fullest, even if that has a cost and about having true friends who are not just there for the parties and the weddings but friends who’ll stand there and listen to your angry, mournful tirade that has no logical flow. Friends that will not try to look for words that seem appropriate but will do the craziest thing just to make you smile.

I thank God that I have such friends. Friends that’ll take one look at me and know I’m not alright. Friends that will say the most outrageous things and God only knows why I still stand there and listen. My friends accept my crazy, and even days like today when I go all Ice princess on everyone, they still stand by me.

You will look at us with these prying, insisting eyes. You will wonder — possibly out loud — why we feel that we can’t be honest with you about how we’re feeling. We will avoid your glance and say “I’m fine,” even though everyone in the conversation is more than aware that we’re not. In fact, “fine” is a pleasant, distant stasis that we haven’t imagined attaining in longer than we can remember. But when you look at us like that, with those eyes that insist on a kind of honesty we have never felt comfortable displaying, there is no chance that we will answer. We will shake our heads, say “nothing,” and walk away.

We have always been told that this honesty is ugly. We have been afraid, as long as we can remember, of coming across as the girl who is too much all at once. We know…

‘Just for a day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then after that?’
‘After that I’ll climb a bus back to Nairobi and you’ll go back to you’re life. No hopes, no promises. It’ll be a perfect memory ‘

She regarded him with a furrowed brow. He smiled through the silence and it took all her might not to crack a smile or to break out into her happy dance.
Of course she was saying yes, but there was no need for him to know how much she wanted to say it! Truth is, the no-strings attached condition was the last thing she wanted. But their world’s were so far apart…

So she was going to take what she could get. A day. A magical day when she could dream and pretend that it was never going to end. A day when she wouldn’t glance at her phone anxiously because the person she wanted to talk to would be there with her.

He was going to hurt her. She knew that with absolute certainity, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. If she had her day, her perfect complete day, then the dark clouds could come on round. He was right; it would be the perfect memory.

‘Im in … but on one condition.’
He let out a loud whoop and did a small jig. When the other people on the street started to stare, she almost felt embarrassed .. almost.

‘Anything’

His smile was so infectious she didn’t even try to fight her own.
She grabbed the keys to his car out of his hand before he realized what she was doing.

‘Im driving ‘.

She rushed to the drivers side of his car and slipped in as he went on a tirade of what a terrible driver she was and something about his precious baby.
She knew he was talking about the car, but still her heart jumped a little.

He looked are her hopelessly and made his way to the passengers side of the car.

‘Im not that bad of a driver,’ she said .
He put his arm over her chair and leaned in slightly.
‘I’ve seen you drive… yes, you are. Just make sure no one gets hurt, okay?’

Maybe it was his proximity, or his eyes, or that languid smile or the fact that she was a hot-blooded female, but in that moment she knew she was a goner.
‘Too late ‘ she muttered under her breath.

There is a war that ensues between the heart and the mind. A war that has no mercy and spares not even the innocence of a babe.
From dusk till dawn, swords draw blood, the sound of metal against metal and grunts of frustration is all that can be heard. To that end, there is only one goal; survival. But only one can survive.

I am not unscathed. The battle marks me as its own . There is no wining for me, no matter which way it goes. With each day one army grows stronger, but in a flip of a coin, the other forces crush their defenses. I grow weaker by the day.

I tire of it all and crave for days of peace. Before this poison was introduced into my body.

I do not know how long I shall last or if I shall, at all. Will there be a victor standing? Shall this land ever know peace again? None is coming to my aid, so I shall lay here and marvel at how blue the sky is. Until my final breath.